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Friday, 7 March 2014

The air is filled with loud bird-song. Slight breeze chills on a brisk dog walk this morning. My day ahead does not include seeing you, as no days apart from the Saturday do at them moment. But I hold out for the end of next week when you shall be discharged and I will be able to go back to seeing you on an almost daily basis.

You have been asking again recently when you are coming home. I use the same analogy each time. I get you to visualise yourself, younger, fitter, in the changing rooms before a big Rugby match. Talk you through it, ask what you would be feeling, what colour your shirt would be, anything to stimulate your memory and your senses. I explain that you've walked out onto the pitch, you need to get that ball to the other side for a touch down. You discuss with me what you might be thinking, how you are going to do it, I tell you you have just set off. then out of nowhere a couple of gigantic players from the opposition floor you. You hang on to the ball and strive with everything in you to get to the other side, that is where you are heading and you have to get there, but this obstacle has hindered you. You need to fight like hell to get up and get going again. I explain that this is about where you are at at the moment. You are on the pitch, you were floored by injury, but are coming out of that and starting to prepare yourself for the ultimate touch down. For getting home.

You relate well to this analogy and I use it each time now, hoping it will sink in.

I have spent several days now, heart racing in a positive vein. Blood pumping in the right direction.

And tonight, tired after a week of visitors, school commitments, friends of the kids here after school, kids waking too early and going to bed too late, my heart has dropped. That familiar ache. That hum of pain, increases to sears as I try and blank out my thoughts of you.

I miss you.

I am alone, again, on my own on yet another Friday night, with you in a different place, as is our life now.

Thursday, 6 March 2014

Making Waves for You is beginning to take shape. Although it si constantly on my mind, I am finding it a channel for all my energies, and it is giving me back energy and drive in return.

I am speaking to the few people I know who have been through similar experiences to get their stories/advice/assistance.

In doing this and filling my time with it, I have found I feel less of the 'alien in the room', less of a stranger in the world. I feel normal, as they experience similar yet different lives, my daily routines and thoughts and loss and grief is held on an unspoken wavelength, and I feel more normal. It makes seeing the daddies at school, the couples in the supermarket, the families out together, no easier, yet it makes it almost bearable.

The ache is still heavy, but I am using my energies in a positive way, not letting them circle endlessly around me inside, surfacing in tears and grief and feelings that I accomplish nothing.

As a person, I have never had much confidence in myself.

These past few years I have looked back and managed to say to myself in the mirror 'you're doing OK'

Something I have never told myself before.

And with this added project, which is slowly taking shape, I feel I am becoming 'me'. An independent me. Away from mopping up after the kids, because I am scared of the day I will not be able to do that in the same way anymore, they are growing fast and I need something for me too. Something I can be devote myself to in the same way I do you and the kids. Away, too, from being everything for you to no avail.

It was a strange day for you today, most of the times you ring you are in an unbelievable mood, even recalling what you had done this morning when you rang me at lunch. Then tonight, you ring several times, each time distressed, howling down the phone and the you would throw the phone and insist on ringing me back…And since you threw it the last time, you have not rung back… I hope that our call before bed sees you calmed.

Wednesday, 5 March 2014

According to the kids, it is now 40 days of eating pancakes, I have taught them all wrong it seems!

Although in all honesty, I could probably join them in that!

We get up extra early, mix the chocolate pancake mix (at their request) and chocolate pancakes for breakfast ensues…

I walk the dog this morning, I do not get the time to do this everyday, and it is my favourite thing to do. Especially at this time of year. Odour of freshly cut grass, I see blossom arising, straining to venture into the world, new life, bird song drowning out any other sound.

Decisions have been an unwelcome part of this journey. Placing you in 24/7 Care, sending you back to this environment after we tried you living at home, deciding when I should leave at each visit.

Decisions which feel so surreal, like I am looking in, an observer in some nightmare dream. Only it is not, and after each heartbreaking decision I have to make, I have to face that this is now my reality. Your reality.

Rarely seeing you is so hard, but again, I had to accept this with your best interests at heart. I feel so cut out, cut off, and I miss you terribly. You ring me several times a day and we Skype once or twice, which helps me, being able to see your face and gage how you are. Your hone call to me tonight was one of those surprising moments, when you have such clarity in your voice, and as I ask you what you got up to before tea, you say 'I had Physio, I walked to my room' I imagine this means you walked from the Gym to your your, making it the length of a corridor, and I know you have 2 people to support you. But I am stunned. It has taken over a year to get back here. Losing the use of your Left leg in the Old Care Home, put you back so far. To know that this is now back to where you were 18 months ago, is heartbreaking in one sense, as I think how much further on you could have been. But it is what it is and this progress is immense.

Monday, 3 March 2014

I miss the 'doing normal things', I miss the mundanity of a routine/a normal day.

I miss the 'fancy a cuppa, babes?'

It's these I miss the most.

Mondays are always frenetic, all of us are tired, we are back into the rush of the morning, despite rising at 6.45 am. Porridge and weetabix duties ensue, shoes, coats, book bags, last minute reading, signing forms, putting things in the diary. The fruit, the bottles of water, the teeth cleaning, hair dressing, dressing, making beds, letting the dog out for a wee, feeding the animals…and all the time I imagine you there. Although you would have been up early, probably gone for a surf before you started the day, I knew you would be home by the time I had dropped the kids off at school.

The salty smiles, the kisses and 'how was the school run?' Someone, not just anyone, my best friend to talk to about how it all went, from the tiniest detail to the plans for the rest of the day. When you were around, Esmie was not at school, sometimes in the Summer we would head off somewhere remote to the beach for the day till kid pick up time. I was always so proud the days you did the school run with me. Me on my beautiful man's strong arm. A couple. Parents together.

How the kids loved seeing you-a welcome surprise, as it was usually me there at the school gates.

I drop Mitzi and Esmie off at Gymnastics tonight, popping to the shop with the two older ones. A couple stroll along, they share a moment, he puts his arm around her and kisses the top of her head as she leans into him. My eyes well up and I turn quickly away. As I do this an elderly couple cary a basket and hold hands. This is one of my favourite sights to see, although I now look on with mourning in my heart.

I grab the things we need, forgetting most in my haste and pay.

In the car I sit for a while, engine running, gulping back tears that have sprung me. The kids ask if I am OK. I cannot answer for a bit, I just need to breathe…

Sunday, 2 March 2014

I have had the bud of an idea, I have grown it thus far to speak a little about it, my mind whirrs with ideas, thoughts that I will put into action. Writing them as they come to me, I am never without a pad and pen to scribble new bits down, so I do not forget them with all that is going on in my snowstorm of a mind right now!

I have a name 'Making Waves for You'.

I have the basic website, the bones of a structure for content, and I write, I work to fill it out and expand it, develop this bud into a reality.

I am caught up in the process of it all. Fear, excitement, emotions spill over. And yet this incredible positive and proactive tiny idea is reaching, will reach, my reality.

My goal, to create a website where the family and close friends of people who have suffered a head/brain injury can gain support, give and receive hope, gather advice, ask for help.

I am excited!

I am motivated and this is happening more quickly than I ever imagined.

It's collating information, it's designing a comprehensive website, it's thinking on how I will publicise it, raise the awareness, and where I can go with it once it is established.

Yet amongst this all, today, I have hit a wall, however. I am tired, I miss you, and I would change all this to have you back…

Tamsyn Wood & her husband Alex.

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Anyway...about me...

Alex, my husband of 10 years had a rugby accident over 2 years ago, leaving him blind and severely disabled. I have learned the hard way how precious life is and what truly matters. Love, light, healing, gratitude and blessings to all who read my blog xx